


If I were any older, I could act my age

by heavenisalibrary



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mathematically, that,” he says, reaching out a hand to gesture vaguely about her bikini, “does not add up to an entire swimsuit.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I were any older, I could act my age

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy PWP with velociraptors. Er, yeah. What of it.

“It’s a planet of beaches,” he says, spinning around in a couple of clumsy circles with his hands splayed toward the sunny sky. River peeks out of the TARDIS, looking critically at their surroundings. He’d told her to wear a swimsuit, after all, and she needed to make sure he hadn’t accidentally taken her to Antarctica instead. Noticing her hesitance, he huffs an impatient sigh and stalks toward her, grabbing her hand a tugging her into the hot sand. “More like a planet that is a beach, really — half land, half water. Fifty-fifty! White shores and blue water, no pollution, few tourists ‘cause it hasn’t been discovered yet by the nearest colony, no sharks.” He grins at her as he hovers close to her face, bopping her on the nose. “If we hovered over the deepest point of the sea you could see straight to the sandy bottom.”

“Very impressive, my love,” River says, granting him a smile that makes him giggle. She hasn’t been traveling with him long — perhaps ten trips since Berlin — and things are still new. She doesn’t know too much about the Doctor, but she does know that he tries exceptionally hard to please her... well, not literally. He’s a bit reticent with physical affection, much to her seemingly never-ending frustration, but every time he takes her out she can see him hanging on her every expression, meeting her every smile with an incredible enthusiasm.

“They took your childhood in my name,” he told her once, “I’m going to do everything I can to make it worth it to you. So many adventures for you and I, River Song.”

It makes her a bit uncomfortable at first, to have someone so wholeheartedly looking after her pleasure; honestly, the first few times they travel, she realizes she never really learned how to laugh, not really. But the Doctor draws it from her over and over again until it doesn’t feel like steel wool in her lungs, and he makes her smiles until she doesn’t even have to think about it anymore. She’s used to fighting, to hating, to hiding. The joy the Doctor forces upon her is unfamiliar, and though at first unwelcome, there’s a lightness to her soul that she enjoys.

“Is there anything living on this planet at all?” River asks, walking past him to the water’s edge. She hears him shuffling about behind her, no doubt spreading the blanket and silly picnic basket he’d insisted upon. 

“Oh, well, yeah,” the Doctor says, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously as she turns around to look at him. He looks quite adorable, she thinks, in his swim trunks and t-shirt, his feet bare, toes curling in the sand. It’s funny to think that the floppy-haired, awkward man before her is the Oncoming Storm she’d been trained to hate and kill.

“But nothing dangerous,” River says, watching him carefully as he flops down on the blanket and sheds his shirt. He’s terribly pale and thin, but she loves the lines of his body, the width of his shoulders and the lithe muscles beneath that perfect skin. Her eyes catch on the lines of his hips, and she’s reminded once more of how very much sex they haven’t been having, when she realizes that he never answered her. “Doctor?”

“Come, sit down,” he says with too much enthusiasm, patting the blanket. She arches a brow. “I’m going to lay back and relax and get a tan, doesn’t that sound nice? Maybe catch a few winks and go for a splash in the water and — get a tan, did I mention?”

“You’re being evasive,” she says, stopping at the edge of her blanket, her toes barely touching his.

“I’m relaxing, River,” he says, laying back and squeezing his eyes shut in a way that alternately makes her want to slap him and hug him. “I can’t answer questions all the time. The Doctor’s off duty.”

She laughs a bit at that, and he beams in response. She tries not to dwell on how that smile makes her heart swell like a balloon in her chest, buoying her mood and releasing her concern into the endless, cloudless sky overhead. He lays still as she settles onto the blanket beside him, pulling her cover-up over her head and reclining back onto the blanket with her hands beneath her head. The sun feels exquisite against her skin, and the smell of saltwater in the air is heavenly. Waves lap against the sand in a constant, whirring rhythm that syncs with her hearts and her breathing until she feels everything slow to a trickle — until she feels his eyes on her, and peels one eye open.

He’s sitting far too close to her face, propped up on his side as he looks at her.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Where’s, er...” he trails off, and she watches with amusement as his eyes trail up and down her body. “Where’s your swimsuit? I specifically remember requesting that you wear a swimsuit.”

“I am wearing a swimsuit,” she says, furrowing her brow and shifting to lay on her side so that they’re facing one another. He looks a bit uncomfortable, tugging on his hair a bit before speaking.

“That’s got to be like — a fourth of a swimsuit. It’s not that I, well, I mean to say I’m speaking from a sheerly mathematical perspective, you understand.”

“Oh, clearly.”

“Right. And mathematically, that,” he says, reaching out a hand to gesture vaguely about her bikini, “does not add up to an entire swimsuit.”

“That’s quite rude,” River sniffs, rolling onto her back. She stretches her arms high above her head, arching her back off of the blanket and curling her toes in an intentionally provocative way. She smiles a bit when she hears him swallow, and rolls onto her stomach, burying her face in her arms and trying not to laugh at the quick glimpse of his face she catches.

“Didn’t mean to offend,” the Doctor murmurs, his voice a bit closer than it had been previously. She feels the sun-kissed warmth of his skin radiating toward her as he shifts nearer, and she envisions him lying on his side, curling his legs toward her as his knee brushes against her thigh. She feels the blanket wiggle, and hears the scratch and slide of the sand underneath until she feels his lips brush ever-so-gently against her shoulder. He kisses her bare skin again, so softly that she’d think she imagined it if his breath didn’t linger like a promise, raising goosebumps on her skin and drawing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. She bites her lip. “It’s a nice swimsuit, if you’d like to call it that. I quite like it, actually — TARDIS blue.”

His words are soft, spoken into first the skin of her shoulder and then her neck as he places a soft kiss further up, brushing her hair out of the way and tangling his fingers in it in the process. Her whole body goes a bit rigid as she feels his other hand come up to drag a finger terribly slowly down her spine, reaching the small of her back and then shifting back to the top. River curls her toes into the sand, biting her lip harder in an attempt not to react. She keeps her face buried in her arms and sighs when he kisses her neck again, trying to release some of the tension she suddenly feels pulling her body taut like a bowstring.

“This color suits you, you know,” he continues, his voice lower than before, a sort of growl now rustling against her ear. She feels his body closer than before, his leg pressed against hers, nearly resting over her own legs, his chest pressed to her shoulder. The Doctor replaces that tantalizing finger with the palm of his hand, warm and slightly coarse against the smooth skin of her back, and she resists the urge to purr like a cat at the sensation. He hums as he places a kiss behind her ear, applying a little more pressure to her back, and she can’t help the slight moan, though she immediately regrets it — she can feel the smugness emanating off of him in waves. “Most colors suit you, though. Green’s a personal favorite of mine — makes your eyes brighter and you skin positively glow. Oh, I do love you in green. No one’s ever made green look so well as you.”

“Hm, darling,” she says into her arms with a bit of a laugh. His tone at once makes her feel indescribable and terrified; he’s so worshipful, sometimes, so in awe of a skin she’s not quite so comfortable living in just yet, and it’s not the physicality that concerns her; sex has never been a mystery to River and she’s never suffered any lack of self-esteem, but it’s more the name that she feels a bit too young for, it’s her own shoes she’s not sure she’s able to fill. And still he goes on — she’s not sure what she’s done to deserve it, deserve him, but when she expresses such doubts he’s quick to remind her that she’s worth every word and every moment, and she’s never trusted anyone so much as she trusts him. Even the swimsuit is a sign of her trust, though she’s not sure if he realizes it. She — child soldier, trained assassin, most wanted war criminal in history — allowed him to take her to an unknown environment with unknown threats and she didn’t have a single gun on her person. Every time she left without a weapon at her side, there was a long and painful struggle that precipitated it. To leave unarmed was to leave vulnerable. It occurs to her that the Doctor probably realizes this, because he always knows, or perhaps because she’ll tell him when she’s older and less scared, but she appreciates that he doesn’t mention it, if he does know.

“The blue, though, is definitely your color,” he says after a pause, fingers pausing in their trail down her back to toy with the tie of her swimsuit at the back of her neck. She can’t help but squirm a bit when he presses another kiss to her neck, lingering this time, his lips slow and warm, his teeth sharp and abrupt, and his tongue rough as he sooths the small bite. “I’m sorry I ever insulted it. Forgive me?”

She lifts her head from her arms to find his face right before her, and she rankles at the fact that he knows her so well that he can predict her reactions so completely, but at the same time, he’s grinning, and his cheeks are a bit flushed, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that terribly endearing way and dark despite the bright sunlight, and she can’t help but instantly smile to see him like that. 

“I suppose,” she says, and his grin widens further, his hand resuming its path up and down her spine. “But only so long as you stop wittering.”

“Can I help it if you inspire me to poetry?” he says, and she lets out a bark of laughter, rolling away from him and onto her back, if not only to stop the maddening trail of his hand.

“Hardly poetry, my love,” she says, the endearment sweet but sticky as it presses between her lips. He starts to respond, but she cuts him off with, “oh, do shut up, hm? You’re ruining my relaxation.”

“And I’m the rude one?” he says, his voice going a bit high toward the end. He shifts toward her once more, and she delights in the fact, propping himself up onto his elbows so he can look down at her, blocking her sun.

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Why, I ought to —”

“What, dear? Talk me to death?”

He glares at her adorably, thinks for a moment, and then suddenly lunges at her. She can’t stop the rather undignified squeal of surprise that escapes her as he begins to tickle her, his fingers dancing up and down her sides and beneath her neck as she squirms and laughs beneath him, curling into a ball around his hands in an attempt to get away, but he’s unrelenting. She wriggles away, sliding off of the blanket into the hot sand, still laughing, and after a few moments of struggle manages to lock his wrists in one of her hands and roll him over so that she’s seated on his navel.

He humphs. “Well, this is no fun.”

“You shouldn’t mess with me, Doctor,” she says, leaning forward to press a kiss on his nose as he pouts, though she keeps his wrists tightly trapped in her hand. “I’m meant to kill you, after all.”

“You haven’t the means!”

“I could kill you with one hand tied behind my back and blindfolded, sweetie,” she says with a wicked grin. “Don’t test me.”

“Shouldn’t find that sexy,” he says after a moment, a mischievous grin a his face, “kind of do, a bit.”

She smiles, leaning forward again to place a kiss on his lips. She barely touches him, at first, just touching her lips to his and sliding her body out very slowly until her legs straddle his hips and her torso is stretched along the length of his. He struggles against her hands when she kisses him again, but she pins his wrists between them, applying a bit more pressure to his lips; she nips slightly as his bottom lip and he gasps, mouth parting, and she can’t resist kissing him more thoroughly. He’s terribly eager, she notes, whimpering a bit into her mouth as she rolls her tongue against his, shifting her hips against his; they both exhale through their noses at the friction, and she presses more tightly against him, reaching her free hand up to tug gently at his hair. His teeth scrape against her tongue and he sucks on her upper lips as she pulls away a bit. He tries to hold onto her, lifting his head, but she holds him down with the hand in his hair, traveling downward to kiss at his jawline, rolling her hips against his in a constant rhythm; she feels him grow harder against her with every renewed attempt to free his hands from her grasp, and the knowledge makes her grin against his skin. He ruts up against her and the feeling draws a throaty moan from her, and she sits up, closing her eyes and pressing back down into him — the friction is so good for the brief moment that she forgets that she’s been restraining him, and with a growl he slips his hand from her grasp and rolls her over so that her back is pressed to the sand and he’s pressed above her, kissing her so fiercely that she forgets to breathe. 

When he pulls away she’s gasping for air, and he’s reaching down between her legs to shift her bikini bottom aside and press his fingers against her, rolling his thumb over her clit and quickly pressing first one, then two fingers into her, his breath heavy against her cheek; her back arches at the action, but he doesn’t give her time to adjust, moving his hand in and out a bit roughly, but she hardly minds. This is exactly what she’s wanted, all those evenings he’d dropped her off with little more than a kiss and maybe a quick grope if she was extra lucky. She feels herself climbing higher and higher, panting and just barely preventing herself from keening his name in a way that will make him far too smug for her liking, when suddenly he removes his fingers; she only moans louder when she feels him sliding down her body, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses to each of her breasts over the fabric of her bikini, to her sternum, down her stomach, to each of her hip bones where his teeth scrape; he pulls her bottoms down and then his face is between her legs, his tongue and lips and fingers working together. She hums against her and she reaches down to grip his hair tightly, and within seconds she comes so hard that everything goes white for a moment, and it’s not just the sun blazing overhead.

The Doctor slides back up her body, kissing her lips gently as she sighs, stretching luxuriously beneath him. River is just about to come up with some brilliantly witty response and perhaps roll him over to return the favor when she notices the ground shaking, ever so slightly. She feels him go tense against her, and frowns.

“Doctor?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Is there anything dangerous living on this island? You never answered.”

He stays silent, and River shoves him off of her abruptly.

“Doctor?”

“Well, there may be a slight case of, erm,” he pauses, sitting up and adjusting his slightly-too-snug swim trunks. “Velociraptors, if you must know, but it’s not as though they know where we are — unless they heard you —”

“You might have warned me to be more quiet —”

“I don’t usually have to apologize for making you scream, and I —”

She cuts him off by fisting a hand in his hair and pulling him in for a quick, toothy kiss. He looks baffled as she pulls back, but she just grins broadly, already jumping to her feet. “Sweetie?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Shut up and run.”

And so they do.


End file.
